Jordan Kobritz

Archive - August 2017

Controversies in baseball are virtually endless. The Designated Hitter, Instant Replay, Inter-league Play, Wild Cards, Pace of Play - and on and on it goes. Here’s another topic that is starting to heat up: Robot Umps.
According to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred the technology to accurately call balls and strikes will be available sooner rather than later. He’s right, but the availability of the technology isn’t the question; after 150 years of players, fans and the media (mostly) complaining about umpires, should MLB eliminate one of the human elements from the sport?

In a nod to the “if you can’t beat them, join them” idiom, the Walt Disney Company has decided to join the cord cutting revolution.
In a stunning move that shocked the media entertainment industry Disney announced plans to introduce not one but two streaming services, one built around sports programming and the other focused on movies and television programming. The former will be unveiled early next year and will include live baseball, hockey, tennis and college sports. The service will stream an estimated 10,000 regional and national events in its first year alone. Subscribers to the new service as well as cable and satellite subscribers will have access to the sports service through an enhanced version of ESPN’s current app.

Jordan Spieth won this year’s British Open, golf’s oldest tournament, in dramatic fashion but that may not be the most enduring memory of his performance.
During the first two rounds of the tournament Spieth could be seen vigorously chewing gum. That sparked a debate about the role, if any, that gum chewing plays in sports performance. The discussion began during live coverage of the rounds on the Golf Channel and was flamed by social media. Did chewing gum contribute in any way to Spieth’s performance or was it merely coincidence?
Researchers have left nary a stone unturned and sure enough, there is scientific research on the effects of gum chewing on physical and cognitive performance. And not surprisingly, the findings from those studies are far from uniform.

NBA free agency opened on July 1 and teams wasted no time in signing their own or other teams’ free agents to what may appear to be exorbitant contracts.
Stephen Curry re-signed with the Golden State Warriors for five years and just over $200 million. Kyle Lowry signed a 3-year $100 million contract to stay with the Toronto Raptors. Gordon Hayward left the Utah Jazz to sign a 4-year $128 million contract with the Boston Celtics. Blake Griffin decided to stick with the only team he has known, the Los Angeles Clippers. You would too if they agreed to pay you $173 million over five years despite being plagued by injuries, as Griffin has been during the past few years.

Four billion dollars. That’s a significant sum in virtually any context, unless we’re talking about the federal budget. And yet Major League Soccer (MLS) said “No thanks” to an offer that would have netted the League that amount over a 10-year period.
Riccardo Silva, founder of MP & Silva, an international sports media company, made the proposal in exchange for MLS’s worldwide media rights. But the offer came with a condition. MLS would have been required to adopt the promotion and relegation system that is utilized in European sports leagues. Simply stated, pro/rel is a process where teams “transfer” between two leagues or divisions based on their performance during the previous season. The best teams in the lower league/division are “promoted” to the higher level for the next season, and the worst teams in the higher league/division are “relegated” to the lower level for the following year.